


A Terrible Mistake

by lunarlychallenged



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, I hate him guys, I'm Sorry, Jemma visits Ward in captivity, Post-Season/Series 01 Finale, Ward POV, Ward is a jerk, all angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-04
Updated: 2018-04-04
Packaged: 2019-04-18 03:26:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14204013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunarlychallenged/pseuds/lunarlychallenged
Summary: Fitz was unfailingly loyal.  He did what he needed to do for his friends, even if it was so far out of his comfort zone that the boy was drowning.Then again, that may not have been the best turn of phrase for the situation.Or, Simmons goes to visit Ward while she waits for Fitz to wake up.





	A Terrible Mistake

Jemma was very small, but Fitz made her very big. The two of them brought out the most of one another, for better or for worse. Ward would know; he had spent plenty of time with each of them separately. 

He played video games with Fitz. He had gone on a mission with him, just the two of them in a big world. He helped Fitz improve his aim at the gun range when they were grounded, and Fitz taught him to use equipment that was light years ahead of anything he had ever used before.

He had jumped out of a plane for Simmons. She would play tic-tac-toe with him during debriefings. He gave her a few lessons in hand-to-hand combat, and she taught him basic chemical and biological components to help in get by in the field if she wasn’t there to help him herself.

In short, they had been his friends. Making friends was not one of his many skills, and keeping friends had always proven to be even more difficult. Even so, the two scientists somehow seemed to really like him. Even more surprising, he really liked them.

Being part of a team, as it turned out, meant treating other people as an extension of himself. He could not behave as a specialist, taking the weight of a mission onto his shoulders. It forced him to put his faith in people that he never would have considered to be trustworthy before.

Coulson was trusted by Nick Fury for a reason. He had faith in people, and he made people want to live up to those expectations.

May would ruin herself for the good of everybody else. She had done so before, and she would do it again.

Skye, a known criminal, only bended the rules to do what she thought was right. Ward had found that for the most part, her gut instinct was right.

Simmons could be counted on to do what needed to be done. She could scientifically solve any problem, no matter the time crunch. When she thought that her own life would end the lives of her loved ones, she was willing to end it.

Fitz was unfailingly loyal. He did what he needed to do for his friends, even if it was so far out of his comfort zone that the boy was drowning.

Then again, that may not have been the best turn of phrase for the situation.

Jemma was very small, but the fury that shone in her weary eyes was big enough to fill the room. She did not speak to him, opting instead to glare at him from the outside of his glorified cage.

“I was trying to help you,” Ward finally said. He did believe them, but Jemma clearly did not.

She gave a throaty, hoarse laugh. He supposed that it raw was from screaming. He was a little relieved that he hadn’t been there to hear it. “Of course. The best way to save people from yourself is to drop them out of an airplane and leave them at the bottom of the ocean.”

“I was giving you a chance.” Ward had rehearsed the words since Coulson first came to see him after fishing Fitzsimmons out of the water. Skye still had not come.

“You left us to die,” she snarled. She still wore the dark little sweater and jeans that she had been wearing the last time he saw her. It had been a few days, but he supposed that she had been a little too preoccupied to change.

“I left you to live, and both of you did. Jem -”

“Do not,” she hissed. “You have no right to use my name. You have no right to act as though you did us any favors. You lied to us. You betrayed us. Fitz believed in you, even when you were locking us in that pod. Do you see where that got him? Fitz still hasn’t woken up, and I don’t know if he -” She covered her mouth with one hand, never looking away from him. Tears slipped out, but they were not sad. They were angry. They were full of an unholy, unwavering rage. He had seen her upset, and he had seen her angry, but this was nothing like that.

He opened his mouth, but closed it again. The words that waited on his tongue were too cruel to be said so soon. Jemma, he thought sadly. That’s on you. I gave you a chance to survive, and that was the best you came up with. That’s on you.

“I hate you,” she said. It was as matter-of-fact as anything she had said in the lab. It was as simple to her as any of the scientific principles that always flew over his head. For once, what she was saying made perfect sense to him, and for once, he wished that he had no idea what she was talking about.

“I don’t hate you,” he replied. 

She scoffed. Oh, how her eyes were filled with loathing. She looked at him as though he was scum. Jemma Simmons was a god, and Ward was nothing more than the low-life that she was going to smite. He was not even worthy of being a sacrifice. He thought that he might agree with her, though for different reasons.

She turned to go, head held high and back straight. At the last second, hand hovering over the doorknob, she turned her head ever so slightly. She did not look at him; she just made him know that her words were for him.

“I trusted you. We all trusted you.”

He sighed a little. “I am afraid that you have made a terrible mistake.”  
She dipped her head in a curt nod. “Finally, something we can agree on.” She left, and she did not come back. She left, and though Ward tried to think of what he could have changed about his words to make her understand, he could not think of a single thing to show her that he did what he thought was right. That he still believed that he had been in the right.

Jemma Simmons was gone, and that somehow hurt more than the resentment in Coulson’s eyes. It was somehow worse than Skye avoiding him. Simmons had trusted him. He had saved her once, she had taken his emotional advice, and they had played games together. She had trusted him with Fitz, though she had been terrified for the both of them. Jemma had trusted him blindly, and the second she left his prison, she took all of that trust with her. Its absence left him empty and cold.

She turned her back on Grant Ward, and for all of that her resentment brought him, he could not think of a single thing that he would have changed to fix it.


End file.
